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08/25/2025
You still have time to become a friend of the 53rd National Storytelling Festival! You can choose from five levels of support, each of which entitles you to different benefits. We wouldn't be able to host the Festival without support from viewers like you!
08/24/2025
Help us welcome Andy Offutt Irwin to Storytelling Live this week!
With a silly putty voice, hilarious heart-filled stories, and amazing mouth noises (arguably, the greatest whistler in the world), Andy Offutt Irwin is equal parts mischievous schoolboy and the Marx Brothers, peppered with a touch of the Southern balladeer.
A true multi-talent, Andy is a keynote speaker, theater director, songwriter, comedian, newspaper columnist, and sometimes Shakespearean actor. His storytelling career has taken him across the U.S., from the Library of Congress to Walt Disney World. Along the way, he’s earned numerous honors, including the NSN ORACLE Circle of Excellence Award and a Special Congressional Recognition from Rep. John Lewis for “outstanding and invaluable service to the community.”
You can catch the traveling troubadour in daily matinee shows Tuesday to Saturday at 2 pm, in a special evening show on Thursday at 7:30 p.m., or purchase his virtual show to watch over the weekend. Reservations for live shows are strongly recommended.
We’re thrilled to welcome Alton Chung to the National Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough, Tennessee, October 3–5!
Japanese-Korean storyteller Alton Takiyama-Chung grew up surrounded by the stories, superstitions, and magic of the Hawaiian Islands—an upbringing that shapes every tale he tells. From the history of WWII Japanese-Americans to timeless Asian folktales, his stories are rich with cultural depth, authenticity, and reverence.
Alton has shared his artistry across the U.S. and around the globe, performing in the Cayman Islands, Singapore, Vietnam, and Thailand. This fall, he brings his finely spun tales to Jonesborough for an unforgettable weekend of storytelling magic.
🌿✨ BIG ANNOUNCEMENT ✨🌿 Your Library is turning into the Shire!
🏡 On Sunday, Sept. 21 from 2–4:30 p.m., we’re bringing you Shirefest—a free all-ages celebration of Hobbit charm and Appalachian heart.
Think storytelling, live Celtic music, blacksmiths, fiber arts, wildlife, games, local vendors, and plenty more magic. 🎶
Save the date and stay tuned for the full lineup! 🧙♂🍂
👉 Plus, while supplies last, grab a FREE copy of "The Hobbit" by J.R.R. Tolkien (one per person) at the Children’s or Information Desk!
08/22/2025
Happy World Folklore Day! At the International Storytelling Center, we celebrate the power of folklore every day—honoring the rich traditions, legends, and wisdom passed down through generations and cultures around the world. These stories connect us, teach us, and keep our shared humanity alive.
08/21/2025
Put the Festival day to bed with this blend of story and song that’s sure to amuse and delight! Festival fan favorite Kevin Kling will partner with "accordionista" Simone Perrin for a one-of-a-kind performance of heartfelt stories and songs. The duo has toured since 2006, including extended engagements at Seattle Repertory Theater, Guthrie Theater, and the Cincinnati Playhouse. The show will be held in the new Jackson Theatre on Festival Grounds! https://store.storytellingcenter.net/2025-festival-after-hours-160/
08/20/2025
You still have time to see Antonio Rocha! Can’t make it to a live show? A matinee performance will be recorded and made available to virtual ticket holders on Friday, August 22, at 2 p.m. ET. Tickets are just $15 per household, and the concert will remain available to stream until Monday at midnight ET. https://store.storytellingcenter.net/storytelling-live-08-19-08-23-antonio-rocha-198/
08/18/2025
We’re delighted to welcome award-winning storyteller Antonio Rocha to Storytelling Live this week! A native of Brazil, Antonio blends mime and storytelling into a captivating performance style he has shared in 20 countries across six continents. He will appear in daily matinee shows, Tuesday–Saturday at 2 p.m.
If you are local to ISC, Fischman Gallery in Johnson City will be hosting Rocha for a free evening of storytelling and community on Tuesday, August 19 for Once Upon a Hill in Maine: The Pedro Tovookan Parris Story. Experience a powerful journey of resilience, courage and freedom through the eyes of Pedro Tovookan Parris who was born in East Africa and found his way to Paris, Maine after being enslaved as a child and taken to Brazil on a ship from Maine.
Written and performed by Antonio who also settled in Maine, this poetic narrative is brought to life through storytelling, song, and mime—interwoven with his own perspective as an immigrant from Brazil with African roots. A Q&A with the artist will follow the performance. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. and the stories begin at 7 p.m.
Can’t make it to a live show? A matinee performance will be recorded and made available to virtual ticket holders on Friday, August 22, at 2 p.m. ET. Tickets are just $15 per household, and the concert will remain available to stream until Monday at midnight ET.
Happy National Nonprofit Day! Today we celebrate the incredible work nonprofits do every day to uplift communities, spark change, and make the world a better place. Here's to the passion, dedication, and heart behind every mission.
08/15/2025
Please join us in welcoming the legendary W***y Claflin to the National Storytelling Festival stage! A musician and storyteller since the early 1980s, W***y delights audiences with a mix of original and traditional tales—often alongside his unforgettable companion, Maynard Moose, the only quadruped on the storytelling circuit.
From British Isles ballads to Appalachian tunes, blues, and his own originals, W***y’s performances are a joyful blend of music, humor, and heart. He’s an NSN ORACLE Circle of Excellence award recipient, has traveled the globe sharing stories, and has even graced the stage at the International Storytelling Festival in Ireland.
Get ready for laughter, music, and a moose-load of fun this October!
08/14/2025
You still have time to catch Carolina this week! She will have daily matinee shows as well as her virtual performance. If you are not familiar with our virtual performances, you buy one ticket per screen, and you can watch the performance anytime from Friday at 2 pm ET to the following Monday at midnight ET. That way, you can watch the show on your time, at your pace, from anywhere in the world! https://www.storytellingcenter.net/storytelling-live-virtual-information/
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Throughout the world, in every culture, people have told stories–at home and at work, when the harvest was taken in, the wood was cut and carted, and the wool was woven. And while the folk were telling their stories, so too were the bards and the minstrels, the griots and troubadours, who were the poets, singers and guardians of a people’s history.
Today, we still enjoy stories–listening to them, telling them–as deeply as did our ancestors, for our lives are bound together with stories; the tales, perhaps ever so ordinary, that seem to catch us up and in some obscure, almost magical way, help us make sense of our world. And since our lives are still intertwined with stories, it would seem that the art of storytelling should have a forever-unchanging place of honor in our history and culture. Yet this is not so. Despite its ageless power and importance, this ancient folk art has, until recently, been forgotten–lost in a sea of print, film and videotape that is testimony to the media’s skill at filling us up with images and ideas that were once the province of the oral tradition.
But during the late 1960s and early 1970s, there emerged throughout America a realization that we were losing our connection to the genuine one-on-one communication of the told tale. The seeds for a re-awakening of interest in the oral tradition were being sown. And in 1973, in a tiny Tennessee town, something happened that rekindled our national appreciation of the told story and became the spark plug for a major cultural movement–the rebirth of the art of storytelling.
It began serendipitously in Jonesborough, Tennessee, a 200-year-old town in the heart of the Southern Appalachian Mountains. On the second Saturday night in October 1973, Jerry Clower, a Mississippi c**n hunter and storyteller, leapt to the stage in a hot, jammed high school gymnasium and told tales to more than a thousand East Tennesseans. They had come for some side-splitting humor in the tales that had made Clower a household name throughout the Deep South. The crowd stomped and cheered and didn’t leave disappointed. The next afternoon, under a warm October sun, an old farm wagon in Courthouse Square served as a stage. And the storytellers were there—a former Arkansas congressman, a Tennessee banker, a college professor, a western North Carolina farmer. They told their tales and breathed life into the first National Storytelling Festival.
Something had happened, and even as people sat listening, they knew they would return the next year and the next. It was as if an ancient memory had been jogged–of people throughout time sitting together, hearing stories. They were taken back to a time when the story, transmitted orally, was all there was.
Every October since 1973, thousands of travelers have visited Tennessee’s oldest town. They come for one purpose–to hear stories and to tell them at the National Storytelling Festival. This celebration of America’s rich and varied storytelling tradition, the oldest and most respected gathering anywhere in America devoted to storytelling, has in turn spawned a national revival of this venerable art.
But of course, there have always been storytellers–solitary tellers–telling stories, keeping them alive. They were inspired not by a groundswell for storytelling, but simply because there was within them a need to tell. They are the storytellers who have been at the vanguard of the cultural movement that is sweeping through America. They are the storytellers who were among the architects of America’s storytelling revival. Single voices at first, they soon were joined by others who were also attracted to the power and humanity of the storytelling art. Today, there are hundreds of professional storytellers traveling throughout the United States, sharing their timeless tales. And yes, thousands more who are teachers, librarians, ministers, lawyers, salesmen, therapists, and others who use storytelling as an integral part of their lives and work.
Since its beginning in 1973, the National Storytelling Festival has become America’s foremost storytelling showcase and it has nurtured and nourished a national rebirth of storytelling. And as more of us discover and tell the stories in our own lives, the connection–the genuine one-on-one communication of the told story–will allow us to give back to our world something as precious and treasured as life itself.
The National Storytelling Festival is produced by the International Storytelling Center.
